mustang

Question
I have a 10 year old mustang mare who came to us over a year ago. We kept her after the people who owned her were going to rope her and drag her into a horse trailer and take her to the Mennonite, I couldn't stand the thought of her going through any more trauma,so now she is mine. I do not believe anyone has ever tried to do anything with her as you can't get near her. When she came to us she had a halter on and it got caught in a water spigot and caused a severe cut on her head, I had her sent to the mustang ranch in Cross Plains TN where they are set up to handle horses like her and we got the halter off, it has now been a year since that time and she is all healed and will now come willingly into the barn to eat in the aisle with the other horses and will come to me and eat from my hand when I have a feed bucket and will let me touch her on her face and I've even picked a couple of burrs from her forelock, she is loaded. She is an easy keeper keeps her own feet trimmed and is very healthy. I'm just not sure how to proceed with her from here, any help you can provide will be appreciated, thank you Nancy Haines

Answer
Nancy -

The first thing I would do is get her into a round pen.  The round pen gives you a nice controlled area to work with the horse.  40 feet in diameter is plenty, any bigger and the horse is too far away.  I would start by free lunging her in the round pen.  Lunging is nice because it teaches the horse that you are in control of when they should move and which direction they should move.

Just focus on that for now.  When you can get the horse to move in the round pen in both directions and stop when you want them to - feel free to write me back.

I would also recommend getting the Mustang into a smaller corral or paddock away from other horses.  It will help her focus on you more.

Best of Luck!

Michael Hockemeyer
Kicking Bear Mustangs